Indian football teams

Indian football teams

For Indian football, 2008 was a year of international reckoning. If AFC Cup victory helped India back to Asian football map after 24 long years, the visit of legend Diego Maradona and Oliver Kahn to Kolkata, considered to be Indian football’s capital, inspired an entire generation of aspiring youngsters who have hardly any football icon to model themselves in India.

Maradona’s visit is the best thing that has happened to the desperate Mecca of Indian football since Pele’s visit in 1977.

The importance of Maradona’s visit in the Indian context lies in the value of inspiration, of the pure spectacle. Spectacle never fails football. Diego Maradona kicking a football at the crowd at Maheshtala, near Batanagar, the home of some of India’s finest footballers — Prasun Mukherjee, Sankar Banerjee, Manas Bhattacharya, Shanti Majumdar, Krishnendu Roy — will remain unreal for even those who had their share of flesh-and-blood proximity over the weekend.


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